Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he was worried about the insufficient communication between Russia and the United States, decided to speak directly to the American people.

In a new opinion piece for The New York Times, he made the case against military strikes in Syria, arguing that the potential conflict would result in more innocent victims and escalation and spread beyond Syria. The Russian leader tried to protect his ally (though he said he was motivated by respect for international law, not concern for Bashar al-Assad), by urging the U.S. not to bypass the United Nations Security Council.

We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law. We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in todays complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos, Putin wrote.

The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.

Putin characterized the conflict in Syria, a longtime client state, as an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country.

The Russian president raised the specter of al Qaeda using Syria as a breeding ground for future terrorists. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations.

The Last Word’s “discussion” of Putin and his op-Ed was appalling and left me wondering about your ability to offer any sort of thoughtful treatment of contemporary Russia. You are 2-3 decades behind the times. I am a professor of Russian politics at a major U.S.university, I have lived in Russia and have been regularly visiting it since 1982. I had the good fortune to be the 1st American to conduct an uncensored, live, across-theUSSR, call-in radio program in July 1989, and since then, countless Americans have been heard or read uncensored on TV, radio, and in newspapers. This is true for U.S. leaders and politicians, as well as academics and average citizens like me. To The Last Word’s sarcastic comment about President Obama being able to author an op-Ed in a Russian newspaper that would go uncensored I would reply: YES! Russians have access to our ideas and perspectives, even granting there are real problems with their media! Time to GET REAL about today’s Russia. Having just been in Russia a few weeks ago, I can tell you Russians are aware and upbeat, the middle class is growing, the IMF just moved Russia past Germany as the world’s #5 economy, and even the birthdate is up! We need to move beyond the sort of cartoon-character stereotyping of Russia that was dominant in today’s The Last Word presentation.
I am a regular viewer of The Last Word, I think it is the best political analysis program on American TV, and its treatment of American politics is sophisticated and nuanced. However, its treatment of Russia has been stunningly outdated ad primitive! I am so disappointed.
Watching The Last Word on 9/11/13 reminded me of watching Soviet tv news in September 1982. Russia is not the USSR, and Vladimir Putin is not Leonid Brezhnev!<<<<

The only thing exceptional about America today is that we have a government that is running it into the ground. The rot never stops and almost every action is guaranteed to have us asking, What the eff?

America used to be “exceptional.” But that was back before the country slid into the gutter of corrupt, one-party statism and a noxious culture of depravity. Socialism, fag-marriage, dope, and open-borders. America is a pathetic, embarrassing shell of what it used to be.

Zeidan’s government appears to be on the verge of collapse. Critics say he has failed to rein in militias and Islamist groups, or to end a strike by workers and guards at oil facilities that has crippled the economy of North Africa’s largest oil producer.
Security

Security is still fragile. A car bomb went off Wednesday near the Foreign Ministry building in Benghazi. There have been drive-by shootings, bombings and kidnappings. The Washington Post reports:

“Even minor disputes escalate into frequent gun violence on the streets. Kidnappings and armed robberies are increasing, and government officials and others have been assassinated with guns and bombs. Militants and arms smugglers easily cross poorly protected borders shared with Niger and Chad.

Is Egypt repeating the same mistakes that led to its political impasse?
A body appointed by Egypt’s interim government to rewrite the country’s constitution met for the first time today. Critics are warning it looks set to repeat the mistakes of the past few years.

Obama Destroyed Egypt,Obama Destroyed Libya.Now imagine if Obama fire missles into Syria ,he will have created another civil war there and nobody will know who are the good guys/bad guys. Obama should stop while he is behind.

“Putins an insincere bastard, but you have to give him credit. Hes trolling all of us with a cold, straight face.”

When the Ex-KGB Officer President of Russia is undeniably holding the moral high ground against the Peace Prize-winning President of the United States, you know that we, as a nation, have completely screwed ourselves.

Putin is trying to send a message directly to the American people about how close Obama has pushed us to WW3. The problem is, the vast majority of the American People won’t be seeing it. It doesn’t fit with the Administration/Academic Radical Socialist/MediaMatters agenda.

14
posted on 09/11/2013 10:14:35 PM PDT
by tcrlaf
(Well, it is what the Sheeple voted for....)

The only thing exceptional about America today is that we have a government that is running it into the ground. The rot never stops and almost every action is guaranteed to have us asking, What the eff?

Absolutely...Many are finally realizing nearly every single problem in America today is caused by bloated, controlling corrupt government at every level.

17
posted on 09/11/2013 10:22:28 PM PDT
by dragnet2
(Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)

It’s not the content of his message, but the fact he has a voice in America that is apparently recognized as an alternative to Obama’s. A politically recognized Statesman, none that we have, would seize upon this disparity and address the weakness and failure Obama has brought upon the Country.

The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.

We helped create the beast, we accepted the terms and the UN Charter is "the law of the land". So, while we can pass all the authorizations we care to, that authorization will be a violation of US Law - I could care less about "international law" - and our soldiers would be operating under illegal orders.

So, if Obama is REALLY serious, he needs to quit the UN and renounce the charter. I hope he remembers though that NATO is only required to aid us if we are not the aggressor - me thinks we would be awfully alone. No JF'nK, France doesn't count.

23
posted on 09/11/2013 10:36:55 PM PDT
by An.American.Expatriate
(Here's my strategy on the War against Terrorism: We win, they lose. - with apologies to R.R.)

Putin is trying to send a message directly to the American people about how close Obama has pushed us to WW3.

True. But it's interesting how facile these "world leaders" are - they all ride the sled down the mountain, refusing all opportunities to stop, and then just as the thing reaches the cliff they all dive off, demanding "rationality" and "rule of law."

Except Obozo, of course. They made sure he'd stay on by bolting his teleprompter to the sled. What a maroon.

Putin is trying to send a message directly to the American people about how close Obama has pushed us to WW3.

True. But it's interesting how facile these "world leaders" are - they all ride the sled down the mountain, refusing all opportunities to stop, and then just as the thing reaches the cliff they all dive off, demanding "rationality" and "rule of law."

Except Obozo, of course. They made sure he'd stay on by bolting his teleprompter to the sled. What a maroon.

There’s no published evidence, that I’m aware of, the Syrian govt was responsible for the gas attack. And it doesn’t make sense for the Syrian govt to gas people. Such an action delegitimizes a govt that is clearly not interested in making more international enemies.

I’m in no way defending the bastard govt. Syria has clearly violated its citizens — recall the news about the boy that was publicly castrated and burned alive.

This article is from MSNBC ,a liberal propaganda outlet. I wonder what Putin actually said in his article as opposed to what MSNBC is saying he said.

MSNbc and the rest of the media don't report news they only post crap that advances socialism or helps democrats and Obama .ALL MSNBC wants to do is make obama the marxist muslim look good .if demonizing Putin as an enemy of America makes obama look good for now then that's what MSNBC will do

Thanks for writing Vlad...and thanks for giving our little dick tater a headache to last for eternity. But honestly..you owed it to the American people to help correct this misdirected ship, since your countries old 60’s KGB subversion tactics helped to grow us millions of little drug induced marxist spoiled brats.

That said, don’t think for a minute that you can now be “king” of America. Try to step into that role and the still exceptional, free, American people will give your cute little chest a titty twister to remember. Thanks again. And have a nice day.

The difference is that Putin, whether one agrees with him or not, is acting on the basis of what he thinks is best for his country, that is, on behalf of the interests of his country. Obama has never done that in any situation and in fact acts as if he never considers it and believes that he is in some way separate from his country (assuming that country is America...).

So I don’t see why people are snorting, “ yeah, right, Putin is only doing this to further Russian interests.” What’s wrong with that? It’s not an ulterior motive; it’s what the leader of a country is supposed to do.

But Obama started off with the proclaimed goal of reducing US importance and his “strategy” of never considering or even acknowledging US interests in any way is certainly achieving this goal, which is clear to people like Putin. Like him or not, Putin is defending the interests of his country.

I hope so. Meanwhile, I wish the winged monkeys would come and carry off that blue-lipped fraud before he can do any more damage.

Of course, he even openly proclaimed on several occasions that he felt that American influence was too great and that the US had an overinflated view of itself that needed to be knocked down - and people voted for him a second time anyway. So the rot is pretty widespread already.

We WILL BE SPECIAL once again but a different kind of America. Of course, it will require ridding ourselves of millions of demodummies and their muslim buddies, plus a few others who will remain unnamed.

Don’t confuse the government for real Americans... those still pumping the sewage out of America’s bilge. If Americans were not exceptional, real America loving Americans... we would already be England. You saw a million exceptional Americans riding motorcycles in DC yesterday. THAT was exceptional.

Socialism, fag-marriage, dope, and open-borders. America is a pathetic, embarrassing shell of what it used to be.

She STILL is exceptional.

It's just SOME people that are screwed up, and are managing to screw things up for everyone else. And they can and will be thrown from office.

Colorado Recall just proved how exceptional we still are; where else on the planet can you non-violently REMOVE two buttheads from elected office when they force anti_Constitutional laws on the people??

Two Million Patriot Biker Ride-Through just proved how exceptional we still are - both for the act of Civil Disobedience they performed by IGNORING the permit-denial and the show of Americanism in the face of what was supposed to be a muslim middle finger to the rest of us (THAT fizzled... 25 of them showed up).

Weiner and Spitzer being shown the door - and the door hitting them in butt on the way out - proves that we are exceptional, and that there is STILL hope. Man, I was SO prepared to wake up yesterday morning and see that one or BOTH of those freakshow idiots had gotten back into office; it IS NYC, after all. But even those folks in that city can change.

No offense Green66, I just think you're wrong there. There's plenty of good when you look for it; we just tend to see - and FOCUS on - the crap - because it IS crap, and it's everywhere, and the purveyors of it are so gleefully in our face about it.

Taking back your Country - and your culture, traditions, history - the ESSENCE of America - begins with you.

In other words... ain't no Fat Lady singing just yet, brother...

48
posted on 09/12/2013 5:52:32 AM PDT
by NFHale
(The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)

I haven’t given up... yet. But I do admit that in the 25 dry, downward-spiralling years since the exhilaration and enthusiasm Reagan provided, only repeated for me once via Palin’s emergence, my questioning of what can be done, either politically or culturally to salvage America, has gradually been transitioning to a question as to whether America is indeed ‘worth’ saving anymore.

What the country has become... between the sheer deviancy of the American culture, demonstrating the country’s embrace of evil, symbolized by such deviancy as homo marriage, and the monstrous, out-of-control insanity of the government and its facilitation of a populace of dependent serfs... is a vomitous disgrace to everything America used to stand for.

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